The United States Department of Commerce on Monday (20 July) slapped sanctions on 11 Chinese companies for their involvement in human rights violations in connection with China's treatment of Uighurs Muslims in Xinjiang, reports Economic Times.

These 11 companies are the third such group of Chinese companies to have been added to the economic blacklist. The US has asserted that the companies were involved in using forced labor by Uighurs and the other minority Muslim groupings in China.

The blacklisted companies include several textile companies and two firms that, the US Commerce Department said, were conducting genetic analyses used to further the repression of Uyghurs and other Muslim minorities in Xinjiang.

In a statement issued, Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross said, "Beijing actively promotes the reprehensible practice of forced labour and abusive DNA collection and analysis schemes to repress its citizens."

"This action will ensure that our goods and technologies are not used in the Chinese Communist Party’s despicable offensive against defenseless Muslim minority populations,” he added.

The US had already blacklisted a total of 37 such companies in two groups in October 2019 and June 2020 for their involvement in persecution of Uyghurs and other ethnic minorities in Xinjiang.